Lessons Learned
by Quistis88
Summary: IN PROGRESS. Vignettes of lessons learned in between life and loss. Pre-, in- and post-game. Seiftis.
1. Castles

**Prologue - Castles**

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There is a kingdom by the sea, a haven borne from the remains of war. Here survives a matronly lady and her children, not by blood but by circumstance.

Two of the children frolic in the foaming surf. She likes the way the salty sea laps at her slim shins when she rolls up her overalls to her knees. She chases the tide and he chases her. The ends of her brown hair curl slightly skyward, just like the corners of his lips whenever they play together.

Three blond children remain on the shore, far from the reaches of the gentle waves. The girl guides one of the boys to build something grand, because Matron told her she would be a good teacher someday. The other boy practices his swordsmanship with a sturdy branch, because he told himself he will be a glorious knight.

A sixth joins them. A boy with floppy brown hair and a name that matches his eyes. He wears a cheery yellow shirt that belies his personality. He doesn't like the shirt but doesn't complain. He doesn't do anything.

The blonde girl is only too pleased to see his arrival. She tries to get his attention, as she does every passing day. "Come on, Squall! Don't you want to try?" She carefully pours a bucket of water over the small hill of sand, not knowing there are some mountains her continuous goading will never move.

The reluctant boy looks at their castle and deems it unworthy of a response. He thinks about Matron working on tonight's dinner in the kitchen with the eldest sister. He already misses Sis and, having been told to go out and play, he sees that there's nothing worthwhile out here for him. He goes back to scratching the closest rock with a thin stick he found outside the castle limits.

The swordsman rides in on his high horse, and with two calculated swipes breaches the defenses and brings the castle tumbling to its knees.

"Hey!" The smaller boy had just learned how to shape a steeple. "I just maked that!" Builder lunges at Intruder but he's pulled back by a yanking on his shirt. Quistis had predicted his movements before he even knew he was moving.

She will do all she can to prevent war between two wayward forces. She will always seek to understand and mediate, so she stretches herself to her full height—no taller than some of the boulders that surround them—to confront the errant knight who is as raucous as she is regal. She glances at his weapon before the usual interrogation begins. "What're you doing, Seifer?"

"I'mma knight, I save people." He stabs his makeshift sword into the warm sand. Her cross expression makes him cross his arms.

A pink finger gestures at the broken walls that are still softly merging with the sinking foundation. "How's this saving anyone?" She's done this before, not saving her breath and her time when it comes to arguing with him.

"I'm saving yoo from crying—yoo know this won't last." He's seen this before, that nothing lasts.

"Sure it will." But only because she wants it to.

"The one last week only lived two days then yoo cried over it."

"Two days is a long time! Just because you never work hard—"

He makes a false start to scare her into thinking he would strike her. Their minds know he won't but her body doesn't, so Quistis flinches once. He maintains eye contact as she glares at him—summer skies trying to pierce sea glass—and he almost feels a pang of guilt when he sees those skies clouding up with the prospect of rain.

"I can build a better one. Yours don't even have a moat."

"They don't all have to have moats."

"I like castles wi' moats," Zell says as he rubs at the sand pile with a small fist. Maybe if the castle had a moat, that would've kept the knight at bay.

"There, see?" Seifer especially likes validation when Quistis stares him down with her unyielding eyes.

Two soaking children approach the castle ruins, tired of running in circles.

"Are yoo making sandcastles?" Selphie's squeals sound terse in the drying and dying warmth of the late-afternoon sun. "Let's have a comtitition!" She no longer struggles with the mispronunciation as she embraces her linguistic progress.

"Yeah, sounds _fun_!" Zell moves some ways down the beach and is eager to see how he will fare without his teacher. Quistis feels the first bittersweet pang of a student moving on to fulfil his purpose.

Irvine busies himself by scooping sand into the bucket. "Sefie, wan' me to make a cannon for yoo?"

"Okay! I weally wan'it to go _BOOM_!" Her arms punch through the air. Each grain of sand bursts from her palms like the confetti on her birthday, just last week.

Seifer's make-belief weapon now serves a dual purpose as he uses it to dig the beginnings of a moat, cutting deep to draw the outlines of his boundaries.

"Squall?" Quistis tosses him an expectant stare as she makes anxious nips on her lower lip with a pearly baby tooth.

He doesn't want to play but knows that if he doesn't participate, he will continue to be bothered. "I can be the judge."

It's the first thing he's said all day, so Quistis will (always) take what she can get. She decides that she too wants to pass judgment on the work of others, and so she joins Squall as he shuffles to sit on a different and more authoritative rock to assume his new role.

The waves creep closer and the sun dips further into the unfurling horizon as Squall declares a winner. Selphie proves to have more of an architectural eye than the others, but it's unclear how much of that is Irvine's cannon contribution.

"No fair," Zell points out the injustice that no one else seems to see. "They have two peepole!"

Squall's bony shoulder answers with a shrug. "Their one looks the best. Yoo don't even have a door."

"But mine's better than Seifer's, right?"

"Tough luck, yoo baby," says Seifer from inside his shoddy stronghold. He managed to build the fortress around himself. He feels safe behind the walls for only mere minutes until a certain streak—pestilent and dogged—bursts from its vessel. His sword smashes through the granular barricades with a fluid (practiced) movement. He makes a speedy invasion to expand his territory.

A chorus of protests flare up into the air and fuses with the hush of the impending dusk. The knight defends himself with a satisfied smirk.

"Why build it if you can't destroy it?"

Quistis disagrees, even with her limited understanding of the way of the world. "Not everything should be destroyed."

Seifer disagrees, even with his dormant romantic optimism. He shows his feelings by emptying the bucket of water over Selphie and Irvine's handiwork, and everyone watches in silence as the cannons darken around the water's course. They begin their short trek back toward the house. Zell is the first to disappear through the door.

She feels a light trickling of grainy mischief slip from her hair down her back. Quistis pats her hair to find herself touching what might have been a part of the castle. She turns to see Seifer holding his hand over her head, willing a fistful of sand to cascade into her hair.

"Stop it, Seifer!"

Quistis swats at his prank and turns toward the beach (away from him) in time to see the walls of sand crumbling into the surf. Ice creeps beneath her skin like vines on abandoned castles, because the hardened heart of a war orphan knows no other way to cope.

Seifer laughs to mask the pain he endures from her firm punch to his stomach.

* * *

 **Lesson learned: Quistis doesn't like getting sand in her hair.**

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Multiple personalities coming together from thousands of miles apart. A million hopes and dreams. Countless losses they would never fully comprehend. The far expanses of the ocean mirror their limitless potential. Not knowing they are cursed to have their souls ravaged by fate, war and each other, they will build and rebuild their sand castles until the seas recede.

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 **Author's Note:** Hope you enjoyed this short start to a Seiftis that I'll probably finish when I'm pushing 80 years old. Since these are shorter, maybe I'll update more often.

I'm experimenting with writing in present tense, because I feel that it suits the intentions and mood of this story more. The goal here is to provide snapshots into the life of our heroes (but it'll mostly be Quistis and Seifer, of course). I want to ensure that everything is canon-compliant, but I also have limited time for research and a bad memory. So, if anything anywhere is 'wrong', I would greatly appreciate it if you'd let me know! :) Thank you so much for reading. If you liked it, please leave a review.


	2. Knights

**Knights**

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"...fer…...Seifer…"

Something is calling for him in the dark. Through the dark.

He stirs and rubs one world-weary eye with languid force. He scratches a cheek with messy fingernails overdue for an attentive trim.

"...Seifer."

He sits upright, cautiously, his eyes bouncing around the room in the dim light. He senses no movement, hears no sound save for his own breathing.

"Seifer."

He recognizes the voice now. This faint trill of a whisper. He responds in kind.

"…Quisty?"

She acknowledges him by propping herself up on her elbow. "Seifer, are you awake?"

"I am _now_ thanks to _yoo_." He inwardly scoffs at his terrible luck. Constantly fighting with Zell and Squall earned him a few nights in the girls' room, where he's apparently subject to being awakened at any time throughout the night. But he would never give up the fighting. He never gives up.

"...sorry."

He ignores every empty apology he ever receives. "What's wrong?" Because there's always something wrong somewhere, this he knows to be true.

She nearly swallows her own words to keep her throat from drying up. "I'm thirsty."

"So go get s'water."

"I can't."

"What d'yoo mean, yoo _can't_? Just get up an' go."

"..."

He knows this hesitation well. He files away this information for a rainy day, but taunting needn't wait for inclement weather. "Yoo scared or somethin'?"

"I…I'm not scared, I just can't see and I don't want to trip on something and wake someone up." She always has an excuse.

He rolls his eyes though he knows she doesn't see. "It's not that dark, the moon's out."

"Yes, but there're still some places the light doesn't reach…"

Seifer readies himself with a grouchy sigh. He doesn't want to do this but he learned that a real knight wouldn't turn away a person in need. "Want me to take yoo?"

"Well…I…"

So he throws his covers to the side, gets up and walks to her bed. He stretches out a balmy hand to show his dedication to being a knight-in-training. "Here, let's go." Seifer puffs out his chest and puts on his bravest front, his favourite posture. "Hold on to me if yoo can't see. I'll clear the way, okay?" He's pleased with himself, spouting words that a real knight might say.

They fumble their way to the doorway, his hand so firmly gripped in hers that he can feel her pulse between their skin. In the pale light of the moon, he mistakes the gleam of her hair for a spectre but he likes the way it shines.

The hall is hollow and cold and he is momentarily upset that she dragged him out from under the warm covers. "Why'd yoo ask me?" he hisses. "Why not Selphie?"

She is defensive. "I did but she didn't wake up. And Sis isn't here. I know she sometimes goes out at night to the beach but Matron said she's allowed because she's older. You're the next closest."

Only now does he remember passing Sis's empty bed. "Hope we don't run into her then. I don't wanna kill her by accident while tryin' to protect yoo."

"Sis is taller than you and she's stronger, too. This one time I saw her pick you up and—"

He's not amused by her doubt in his strength. Doesn't she know he's working on it? He does five push-ups a day now. "Stop talkin' so much, yoo're gonna wake everyone up." She obeys. "This's what I get for gettin' stuck sleepin' in the _girls'_ room. Why didn't yoo go get Matron?"

"Her room's too far away."

His own heart quickens when she suddenly curls her other hand over his arm, pumping a hot mixture of blood and adrenaline and anticipation into his limbs. He maintains his heroic airs as he leads his fair maiden through the dark tunnel of the hall. He can't see much himself, and part of him may be as afraid as she, but he'll never let it show. He never lets it show.

As his eyes adjust to the darkness, he feels his self-made power return proportionally. He holds his free hand ahead of them like it's a torch and he could swear he almost sees a glowing ember coming from the heat of his palm, but his jaded child's logic dismisses the illusion because it thinks magic isn't real.

Her eyes don't adjust because she keeps them closed. If she's to plunge into darkness, it'll be on her own terms. So she squeezes them shut and makes herself blind just to keep from seeing the dark. She clutches his arm close to her chest and relies on his steady steps for guidance. She muffles a startled mew into his shoulder when their toes finally touch the stone of the kitchen floor.

"See, wasn't so bad," he announces and hopes she doesn't notice the shakiness in his voice. "Can yoo see now?"

She lifts one eyelid to see moonlight flooding the room. She follows him to the counter where Matron keeps the water and juice pitchers.

"Wait here."

She begins to panic when she thinks he'll leave her there alone, but he returns within three blinks with the footstool. He puts one foot on the surface and wiggles it to test its stability before climbing up to reach the half-full pitcher. Carefully, he directs the water into a glass. He's about to drink some himself to relieve the dry dread accumulating in the roof of his mouth, but decides to hand it to the maiden because _ladies first_.

She guzzles the whole glass and hands it back to him for another round. Before she can wet her lips on the refill, Quistis suddenly hears voices. She swiftly turns to face the kitchen doorway where there's nothing but night. She glances back at Seifer in time to catch him reaching for the juice pitcher.

"Seifer, don't. Juice is only for breakfast."

His mouth twists into a familiar scowl and she feels it looks scarier in the shadows. "Who says?"

For a moment, she forgets all about the darkness and the moon and the stars as she reaches for a recent memory. "We never have juice at other times. And besides, you brushed your teeth already. There's sugar in juice, you know. I heard sugar will rot your teeth."

"Where'd yoo hear _that_ from?"

"I don't know," she says between small sips of water. "Sis or Matron, I guess."

Quistis is literally the biggest know-it-all he knows. He knows a lot of people (ten, in fact) and none of them is as much of a know-it-all as Quistis. He's too thirsty himself to argue right now because he knows it'll take forever and two days. He wants to go back to his bed soon, away from the foreboding he feels.

"Fine, lemme have the rest of that then."

She offers him the glass she's holding. He sees something on the rim. Moonglow illuminates a small imprint where her lips had been. If he drinks from there, it would be almost like a kiss, wouldn't it?

"Please hurry, I don't want to stay here too long." She's starting to feel uneasy again.

"Hold on, I'm just checkin' to make sure there's nothin' in the water." He doesn't need her knowing he's thinking about kisses.

"Why would there be something in the water!?" Her mind begins racing at the thought of a possible threat she'd never considered before.

"Nothin'," he declares, then makes a show of draining the glass from her side of the rim. He's disappointed that kisses taste just like water. "Okay, let's—" A shape on the beach stops his sentence and his heart. He can see it from where he stands on the footstool: a big long boat that puts to shame the one he splashes with in the bath. A gasp of appreciation escapes. "Whoa."

"Whoa what?" The know-it-all wants to know.

"C'mere, look'it that." He puts down the glass to pull her up by her bicep. He wraps an arm around her shoulder to lift her onto the stool that's somehow large enough to accommodate two curious minds.

"What is it?" The voices she heard before must have come from outside.

"Dunno, but it looks cool."

She can almost taste the salt on the sea breeze through the weatherbeaten window frame. "What's it doing here?"

"Let's go see." He loves nudging himself toward the brink of trouble.

She knows his instincts well enough to close her fist around the hem of his shirt as he tries to step down from the stool.

"Wait." Her tone makes him waver and he follows her line of sight to the shoreline. The ship is already making ripples and pulling away. A man is left standing, still as a statue and nearly blending in with the rocks.

They watch him until he turns toward them, and for a moment they're afraid they've been made. Quistis lowers her head to hide when Seifer clenches the hand he laid on her shoulder. The man begins to walk closer to the house, his face aglow from streaks that isn't seaspray. Seifer sees a flash of day where the moonlight hits small pieces of glass.

He announces his discovery with an uncomfortable disquiet. "It's Cid."

She claps her hands over her mouth to suppress a gasp.

"We need to get back to bed. C'mon!" He takes her hand again—so naturally now—and they speed through the kitchen and the hall in a black blur. Fear of the dark is always secondary to fear of punishment.

The shared bedroom echoes a mix of heavy breathing and feet shuffling across the floor. The adrenaline is getting to their heads but they know from how far away Cid seemed to be, they'll still have some minutes to recover.

Her hand is over her heart to keep it from leaping out. His hands are propped on bent knees to keep them from giving out. He fails, and one of the shaky knees touches down on the cold stones.

Quistis looks at him between short breaths and sees only the top of his head. She feels somewhat safer that he's here with her, thankful that someone is in this together with her. And she always gives thanks where it's due.

So she rushes at him and holds his head to her beating chest and buries her face in his light blond hair, so blond that it's nearly like a silver meadow beneath the moon. But neither silver nor gold are riches that she understands. This boy is more precious than that, in this moment in time.

Seifer is startled by the sudden closeness, but she's warm and inviting so he wraps his arms around her back and listens to her erratic heart.

She hesitates for only one of those offbeat heartbeats, then plants her lips on his forehead. She releases him to hop back into her bed before she can see his reaction. Pulling the covers up to her face, she turns away from him and wonders if she did it properly. That's how maidens thank their knights, right?

He doesn't say a word as he climbs into his own bed. He doesn't feel the chill of sheets that were left empty for too long. He doesn't understand how life can be so strange. That a voice in the dark can lead to water and a ship, Cid on the beach and a kiss on the brow.

Seifer rubs at that spot on his head because it's still wet and tingling like a phantom salve. He feels a rush of something wonderful—like fire, like home.

With moonshine in his eyes and sunlight in his veins, the heat penetrates the shadows in his soul and keeps him up until two hours before sunrise.

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 **Lesson learned: Sometimes, even the light needs help making its way past the darkness.**

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 **Author's Note:** This part of the story is supposed to be the night that Ellone and Edea leave on the White SeeD ship. Cid would naturally stay behind to take care of the rest of the children and get Garden up and running at the same time. A big job!


	3. Fires

**Fires**

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The children spend their limited days together outside, as they always have. But now, it's for a different reason.

They don't like this new woman much. She's strict and somber, the epitome of a monochromatic soul. She sits like a statue at mealtimes, and has a voice as plain as the bread she makes. The children cannot recall what she looks like if they don't see her. This faceless and graceless being seemingly materialized in the kitchen one day along with the scent of wet waffles, the third day after Matron and Sis left on their "long journey".

Cid uttered that Matron and Sis have gone to meet Sis's new family, and that Matron will stay awhile to help everyone adjust. This was how they learned that "awhile" is really an unending era.

The low rasp from Cid's throat said they left in a hurry because the new family was excited and couldn't wait to meet Sis. The children have no choice but to swallow what they don't know to be half-truths and half-lies. The innocence and inexperience of youth don't know enough to tell a truth from a lie - but they can feel the difference, deep inside. Cid knows it, but doesn't deviate from the story. He can't. He doesn't have the time or luxury to dwell on the past or present when he has a future to build, a prophecy to fulfill.

They don't see him much anymore, after the woman arrived. In Cid and Matron's place is nothing more than this provider, someone to water these orphaned seeds in a graying garden.

A lingering trail of grief now weaves through every interaction, every glance, every activity. Squall's sulking grows by the day alongside his pining for Sis. Squall, more than the rest, cannot come to terms with why neither Sis nor Matron had said goodbye. Maybe he did something wrong, maybe they all did. If he were a better boy, would they have stayed? Would they come back to visit?

The further Squall sinks, the more Seifer wants to needle his way into the other boy's psyche to penetrate the fog.

"She's not comin' back if yoo just sit there like a dumb rock, Squall. Sis won't come back anyway if they adopt her."

"..."

Zell, Selphie and Irvine sit huddled like kindling, trying to reconcile their confusion and hurt with physical closeness. Quistis knows it's not Squall's fault even if he acts and talks like it is. She's next to him, as silent as he as she watches the ocean caress the shoreline. She's reminded of the ship, and all at once feels both privileged and guilty that she and Seifer were likely the last to have seen Matron and Sis. That ship had been taking their mother and sister away and she had done _nothing_. It's her fault more than anyone else's.

So if they all need Sis and Matron so much, then she'll try to give them what they need, not knowing that the square peg of her stubbornness will never fill the abyss even if it manages to slip through their circle of wagons.

"...why's she not comin' back?" Squall mumbles through baby teeth that gnaw rawly on his lips. "I fought she likes us."

Seifer hates repeating himself. Why doesn't Squall ever listen? It doesn't matter what Squall thinks. "Cid already _said_. It's really far away. Why can't yoo be happy for her? At least she'll have a fam'ly."

"I fought we're her family."

"Yoo know it's different - get that through your stupid head!" He kicks some damp sand at Squall's face (he flinches only once). If Squall's going to cry then it better be because he has sand in his eyes, not because of some girl who deigned to be their sister and protector but never cared enough to bid them farewell. Or because of some woman who loved them like no one else, whose warm hugs and carefree kisses always made them feel like they could all take on the world, take over the world.

"But...what 'bout...Matwyn?" Selphie's words barely manage to squeak out. Her hand is wrapped tightly around Irvine's wrist but she somehow feels her own grip around her own throat. "She snot gettin' ab-dopted."

Quistis feels comfortable and confident about this question, having heard the answer so many times. "She has to stay there for a little while to make sure they're treating Sis well, remember?"

Wet sand crumbles from the finger scratching Zell's head. "Why can't Cid play wit' us? I don't like this weird lady, she don't make good pancakes."

"Cid's workin' hard!" Irvine's first response is always to smile and cover up. The bad things you feel will go away if you don't let them show. "He's gon' out t' look fo' fam'lies t' take us, too! Then we can all be happy like Sis."

"I was happy before." Squall's dark cloud looms larger than any ray of light Irvine can throw on the situation. Darker still is the shadow that now falls over their conference, wrapping them in the familiar smell of a worn leather belt and knitted sweater vest.

They cannot dodge the curveball Cid throws at them.

* * *

"Seifer…"

He can barely hear Quistis over the crackling flame, echoing the cracks he's feeling in his chest.

"Don't be a bus-kill, this's safe, I'm tellin' yoo." He had grabbed whichever ones he could reach. If Cid didn't want them playing with these, then maybe he should've hid them better. Seifer knows these are only for special occasions, and there hasn't been any other night this special.

He lines up the stolen stash of fireworks in ascending size order. The biggest ones will have the biggest explosion, right? He wants to save the best for last, because this may be the last time.

But why does he still care anyway? She doesn't even seem sad.

Cid had announced her departure that afternoon, that she would be leaving in the morning. Seifer knows she's excited even if she pretends not to be. Maybe she never liked it here— _them_ —at all. He can't stand it how everyone keeps leaving, but it's his own fault for getting attached. He doesn't want to make this mistake again.

This feels like a bad idea now, wasting fireworks on someone who probably won't appreciate the show, the effort, him. But he's already committed, and Seifer never likes to back down.

Irvine rubs at a new mosquito bite on his ankle. "Maybe we should go get Zell, too."

"No way, he's just gonna chicken out when he sees the first one—"

"Yoooooo!"

Seifer cannot believe their terrible luck. What needs to be done in the quiet cloak of night (never mind that it'll be loud when the fireworks go off) is now being interrupted by the noisiest thing he knows.

Zell rushes toward the beach, past the lines of clean shirts and underwear drying in the night air. "Kids aren't suppose'ta play with fireworks!" comes the proclamation from the top of the stone steps. He isn't close enough, isn't about to be left out or left alone. So he runs down the steps and plants his feet nearer to the group with a special warning. "I'm tell-ing! I'm gonna tell on yoo!"

One day, Zell will learn not to dispense empty threats he doesn't really mean in a fit of anger. But today is not that day.

"Cry-Ba-by-Ze-ll!" Seifer taunts as he stands on a cold beach, with a shiver on his spine telling him that, if everyone leaves anyway, chickens may as well leave first. "Go back to bed!"

The prospect of their eventual bedtime makes for a stifling stillness that hangs in the air like smog. The night suddenly seems darker, the stars dimmer, the heat of the fire insufficient.

Zell feels a chill and creeps closer to the fire. "I don't wanna go to sleep." Perchance to dream.

"It's Quisty's last night," Selphie's reminder is cheerful, unnecessary. It somehow feels wrong to hear those words outside of their heads. "We need to make it speshul!"

"Thanks, Selphie." Quistis offers a polite answer as she tries to keep her own emotions in check. She turns to the muted presence next to her. "Are you ready, Squall? This will be fun," she says, as if saying and hearing something makes it true.

He shrugs a shoulder on the side not facing the fire, so she almost doesn't notice. He's unsure of what to say. He doesn't think anything needs to be said. Nothing he says will change anything. It doesn't matter if Quistis leaves. All he has room for in his thoughts is Sis. He needs all his strength just to keep trying to remember Sis's voice, the words she said, the way she cared for them, especially him. Does someone disappear forever if people forget her? He has to concentrate—no time for talking.

"Get ready, yoo wimps." Seifer extends a palm to Irvine. "Gimme the matches." Irvine fishes the matchbox out of his pocket along with a shell he found that he wants to give to Quistis later.

Seifer props the firework against a sloped rock, and lets the match head hover dramatically over the gleam of the powdered glass on the strike pad. Everyone stops breathing as if they're wishing and waiting for a miracle, something to light up the dark, to keep them together despite all odds.

 _Kchh._

Seifer himself is also amazed when he lights the match on the first strike. He wonders if, when they're all separated, they'll remember how well he handled this part and if it'll still impress them when they're all finally ten years old.

But the air hungrily snuffs out the glow.

"Argh! It's too windy." Seifer needs to blame something so that everyone knows this failing is not him, that it's just the circumstances.

He shuffles closer to the fuse this time, having to scratch the match against the pad twice before it ignites and catches the string. He takes a few steps back as everyone waits—

The tiny rocket shoots a crooked line into the sky, its tail dancing in a wayward flutter. The head soon detonates and a crash of colours follow a loud _pop_. The children stay in a shroud of stunned silence until their squeaks and squeals fill the distance between them and the smoky residue in the air.

"Next one, next one!" Zell demands, forgetting his own admonitions.

Seifer chooses his next victim, places it in position like the one before and sends it off to its fate.

The ambience carries the scent of chemicals whose names they don't yet know—but they will, when they eventually become more familiar with guns and explosives than any child has any right to be. They don't know to cherish these times when they equate these smells with fun and games rather than life and death.

Another blast, another burst. They watch the red blue green embers go where they cannot. They're only seeds planted in decaying soil. Their fate is to sprout branches and not wings. But their will, their souls and their dreams will transcend clouds and storms and they'll fly higher than anyone has ever dared, just to grasp at the light of the moon.

Selphie is the one who notices a flicker behind them, behind a window. Her eyes go wide like the sea. "Oh no! Are we gonna be catched!?"

"I tol' yoo so!" Zell's going to rub this one in.

"Be quiet!" Seifer isn't done. The finale…he doesn't leave things unfinished.

There's no time to light up the rest, no time to revise the plan, no time to say goodbye. He reaches for the largest one at the end of the line, and with a few fluid movements sends the hissing tube of unspoken farewells toward the stars. Their faces chase the sound until it breaks apart with a bang, splaying fire and sparks across an endless canvas.

Until the moment they get ushered inside for a scolding, as they stare at the shimmering remnants that fade into dust, they distinctly feel the seconds of their life ticking past, each glimmer and glitter worth its weight in gold.

* * *

Five minutes to go before she steps out the door.

Cid lets them see her off even with the fresh reminder of their misdeed in the night.

Selphie. She hugs the smaller girl and feels a wet chin tucking into her shoulder. She'll miss splashing around with her in the bath, she'll miss seeing her grow taller.

Irvine. After their hug, he presents her with a seashell that she slips into her pocket with a gentle sorrow. Her gaze lingers on shiny brown locks she won't be braiding tomorrow.

Zell. He's bawling even after Seifer already made fun of him for it. She rubs a hand over his back to ease the collapse of his too-soft heart and tells him to stay strong, and not to always let Seifer have his way.

Squall.

She feels like she failed, that the universe didn't give her enough time to be a better sister. He mutters a goodbye, barely audible. She gifts him a tight hug, unrequited.

Seifer. She wraps him in a hold with limber arms that will one day wrap a whip around his frame in this same way, but with no less intensity of feeling.

He fights the urge to sob into her hair. He's a knight, not a crybaby like Zell. But the epiphany is almost overwhelming and he needs to tell someone, _anyone_.

His whispered confession makes her ear burn. "I know why Sis and Matron didn't say goodbye."

Quistis thinks she knows now, too, but a heavy denial stills her tongue. Her brain is wracked with a reckoning beyond her years. She asks anyway. "Why?"

Seifer's always been one to say what everyone is too afraid to admit.

"It hurts too much."

* * *

 **Lesson learned: Love alone doesn't keep a family together.**

* * *

...

...

...


	4. Weapons

**Weapons**

Quistis. Precocious and eloquent. Of course she was the first to go.

Zell. Lively with an innate sense of justice. He leaves several months after Quistis's absence becomes nothing but a dull numbness in the backs of their minds. Sometimes they can feel the midday breeze tickling at the void.

There were no fireworks for Zell – Cid confiscated them after the "goodbye party, why can't we just say goodbye?" They think no more fireworks must mean no more farewells, but they know the correlation is faulty.

The only parting gifts Zell received were from Seifer: a bruise on the left arm and scrapes on both knees, leaving scars that would take longer to fade.

Irvine. Charming and considerate. Squall hardly considers him when Irvine and Selphie cry on his last day. It's the cleanest Selphie's face has been – she stopped having frequent baths after Quistis left. Without a bath partner, Selphie's face is only washed and exfoliated by salt from the unknowing sea and her own tears.

Fighting and teasing are less fun without Zell, but no less relentless. Squall doesn't fight back, and Selphie's defense mechanisms compel her to talk her way out. The desperation in her tone is as constant as the stars.

"Hey y'know maybe we not gettin' abdopted 'cause our names all start wit' S and—"

"It's _a_ -dopted, you dummy."

"—so we should all change our names an' maybe somebody will wanna take us home—"

"That's not up to us, there's nothing we can do, we have to wait for Cid."

"—oh oh oh! Does 'Cid' start wit' an S too 'cause it sounds like it does do you know how to spell his name—"

"Shut up already!"

Seifer stamps a foot onto the ground and feels each jagged rock dig into his sole and his soul. He can't stand this shrillness in his ears and he doesn't want to change his name. Why should he become someone else to have people accept him? Why should he "wait, Seifer, be patient" when he doesn't even know what they're waiting for? Why should he listen to Cid or any other adult when they can't understand what he's going through? _They_ can go wherever they want because they're adults and why can't he just grow up already so he can leave and go find—

He swings his head, toward where Squall sits like a limp puppet waiting for his strings to be reattached to someone who's not coming back.

"Aren't you gonna say somethin'?" Seifer demands from him for the hundredth time in the last thousand heartbeats, and he'll do so for a thousand times more in the next million.

"...whatever. Doesn't matter what I say." With each passing day, Squall believes this more and more. What does it matter what anyone says or does? In the end, everyone gets left behind.

"You're such a _quitter_."

Has he quit? But he hasn't. Every day, he's thinking about Sis, trying to figure out what went wrong, where she went. This is the only way he can fight against reality, telling himself he'll see her again if he just keeps thinking about her. No one can disappear if you remember them. The idea of someone being _gone_ is scarier than monsters under the bed, monsters in the closet, monsters on the moon.

"You know she's not comin' back." Seifer doesn't know who he's talking about anymore.

Sometimes the silence bothers Seifer more than the white noise between his ears. He fills it now with an anguished yell, drawing from an unseen power within.

"RAAAAAAARRRGGGGHHHH!"

Selphie and Squall watch him as he takes another breath and screams again. And again. And again. Each a different tone, a different texture, the same emotion and intensity.

Another voice joins the fray. He's startled to see Selphie next to him, her neck trying to reach the clouds.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

He suppresses a smile at the unexpected display of camaraderie. This broken family portrait is the picture of misery, and misery is enjoying the company.

She shrieks to release her sadness in sound waves, and hopes they'll carry themselves across the waters to where her thoughts can't go. Her hand reaches for the closest pebble, which she hurls at the sea. She follows the arch and looks on helplessly as it disappears in the water.

Selphie is tired of the sea taking away everything she has, so indiscriminately, so completely. Her legs are her only weapon against the powerful draw of the tide, and she kicks the foam as hard as she can, never knowing the futility of it all. A stronger wave sweeps her off her feet and she lands unceremoniously on the sand, her hand squeezing the grains until her knuckles are as white as sunlight.

Seifer continues to scream and scream and scream until his throat and his lungs are swallowed by a pain worse than the one in his eyes, that stinging sensation of abandonment leaving the body in the form of briny liquid pooling on bottom lashes.

Squall doesn't learn how emotions work for at least another twelve years.

* * *

"It's a good idea, Cid."

"It's a good _investment_." He sells this as much as he can, to the partner and to himself. He has to. This is his investment, too.

"As long as we turn a proper profit, you have my support."

The conditional offer stings the way conditional love grates on the soul. It's only ever about money. If it weren't for money, Cid wouldn't have to find a partner.

Here, in the middle of a commercial district, Cid sees it all so clearly. The sights and sounds of money changing hands and slipping through doors and cracks, buying and selling secrets and safeguards. Money, that has the enviable ability to become anything and give its holder a taste of power and possibility. Money, the most addictive sort of man-made sorcery.

Money, the only thing that he needs, to build up and tear down the greatest loss and greatest loves of his life.

A yellowed hand emerges from the darkness of a heavy sleeve and reaches for Cid, offers him the world. Cid is barely able to wrap a palm around two of the long fingers.

"Thank you for your recommendations," Cid lies about his true feelings, and not for the first time. This is the first of twelve proposals that hasn't been rejected. Cid thinks it's all the sleepless nights that makes him just weak enough to settle for this agreement. And maybe that was what his partner wanted all along: one more way to whittle down the will of a man without leverage. He's trading the last of his strength for a different kind of power now, and he doesn't know if he'll even understand how to hold on to it. He's not even the one who'll get to hold it.

"I give to you now the financing and operations plan, as we discussed, for your records. We can talk more when we next meet."

Cid takes hold of the binder, a loaded contract that would bind him to too much responsibility and too much heartbreak for the years to come.

A hand rubs at a bulbous chin, ripe with the beginnings of suspicion. The voice that barges past that same chin is gruff, stentorian. "Where is your wife? I have yet to meet her. If we are to be in business together, I want everyone on the same page."

"She's preoccupied and cannot come to our meetings, but please rest assured that I confidently speak for both me and her."

"Bujurururu! Preoccupied, you say...the orphanage? And what of your orphanage?"

Cid wishes she were still at the orphanage, to have her close and hear the voice that sounds like solace in a storm. But yes, what of the orphanage. "I know you want me to stop dividing my attention between our venture and the children. I'm actively seeking families."

"How many left?"

"Three."

"You test my patience."

"Not at all, I—"

"We cannot wait any longer. Take two with you. With my support, they'll lack for nothing, so long as it's something money can provide. As for the remaining one, I know someone who may want a child."

Cid is apprehensive about the turn of phrase. It's not that his partner _may_ know someone who _wants_ a child, but only someone who _may_ want one? He can't overthink when he's running out of time. "Any preference?"

"None."

He knows who must stay together. "The girl, then."

"Very well, I shall have them contact you."

He knows he must ask, for her sake. "Are they a good family? Will they help her grow and flourish?" He wants his precious seeds planted in the best soil under the best conditions, but he knows he may need to settle because time feels more and more compressed and why isn't there enough time?

"She'll be in good hands. Trabian winters will make her strong."

But Trabia is so, so far away.

And the future feels far too close.

(Why isn't there ever enough _time_?)

* * *

He looks down at them, past the foggy lenses and an even foggier mind. He can't hear himself think, can't get over how raindrops attacking an umbrella can sound so much like a machine gun. These are but typical delusions of someone with war on the brain and no peace in his heart.

They look up at him, fingers curling into each of his half-soaked pant legs. The three of them huddle for a piece of shelter beneath the umbrella, nearly useless under the inclement assault. The bullets drip down and manage to infiltrate their shoes, to eat away at cotton socks and shivering skin.

It feels strange to be together now, after seeing them so infrequently over the course of a tiring year. Cid could swear they've grown but he can't recall how tall they may have been in the first place. He can't remember without the notches in the stone wall of the orphanage kitchen, the ones his _wife_ would use to measure their _children_ , and he can't think about her right now, he _can't_ , he needs to focus and complete the mission, _make choices_ —

He didn't choose this. He didn't choose _them_. But they're here now, because no one else chose them either.

Cid hears the gentle screech of rain scraping the sides of the structure. He finds it poetic, maybe prophetic, to see the rain fall on a garden that'll one day yield a crop to save the world.

The water caresses and blesses the various shades of blue stacked on top of each other, interspersed between the cold grey of sturdy metal.

"What do you think?" he asks the children carefully. Cid knows their rough expressions hide nothing but a delicate balance between joy and suffering – theirs and his.

Validation comes when Seifer sees that "it's enough blue, I guess...and it's not bad with grey. I _knew_ this was gonna look the best." Seifer is proud of his decision, happy that Cid let him (them, but Squall had no opinion) choose the colours for their new home, when blueprints stacked on the orphanage desk could no longer be ignored, because "it's only fair we get to pick if we're gonna be stuck there."

He chose blues because he used to play with a girl with eyes he doesn't want to forget. He chose multiple shades because he has already forgotten which blue her eyes were. He requested fish and water and sand to mimic the beach and all Cid could do was design the interior with statues and fountains that embrace tawny walkways –expensive treatments that make for poor substitutes.

"What'd you call this place again?" Seifer struggles to recall something he never bothered to remember. He knows what it's supposed to be but he doesn't call it 'home'. It may boast all the blues of the sky but it already feels like a cage even though he has yet to step foot inside.

"Balamb Garden," comes the reply. "It's going to be a school for other kids like you. You'll meet so many new people." Cid tries but optimism comes only in forced spurts. Children pick up on this so easily, so ruthlessly.

"Yeah, big deal...a school for _leftovers_."

The word only grazes Cid's conscience, but hurts more than any gun or blade.

Seifer sprints into the rain toward the entrance, and Cid's hand flounders at the child's shirt hem like a Balamb fish out of water, doomed to die despite the rain piercing its scales.

He watches Seifer run. Squall, too, leaves his side moments later, to catch up to his lifelong rival. Cid watches them run through the bullets of water toward the place that should feel like home but never truly will – the one place where they will grow up but may never grow old.

* * *

 **Lesson learned: The most powerful things always find a way to slip through your fingers.**

* * *

 **Author's Notes** : Yes, this took long enough. My other fic is taking way longer though! At least I updated something within the month like I wanted – I just didn't think it was going to be this one. The next chapter shouldn't take quite as long because it's already half done! Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and if you did, I'd love to know what you liked and where I can improve. Thanks for reading!

 **Update (12/25/2018):** Still working on that chapter...taking a little while to weave the rest together, but it'll come!


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